Saturday, October 10, 2009

Jane: "Hi, Jim, we are working on a new BI-system for the marketing department and we need some ordering- and invoice data."

Jim: "Are you working on a new BI-system?"

Jane: "Yes, Business Intelligence, reports. We need more recent data, the old system can't supply the actuality we need."

Jim: "Ah, I see. What exactly do you need?"

Jane: "Well, what I said, I want all the incoming orders data and all the invoice data. Do you have it available?"

Jim: "You are lazy, Jane, we supplied everybody with our business events catalog. You could have looked it up by yourself."

Jane: "You are right, Jim, but you always are so helpful, and... I just wanted to hear your voice." [blush]

Jim: "You are flattering me, Jane, come over to my office and we will look it up together."

Jane: "You are so kind, I'll be there in a minute."

At Jim's office

Jim: "Look, here are all the business events that currently live in our Global Data Space. But wait, lets first get a cup of coffee. Milk and sucker?"

Jane: "Black please, Jim."

[...]

Jim: "Let's see, orders, yes, here it is, the order received event. You are lucky, the owner has declared the data publicly available to all internal departments. Notifications cost 10 billing points per message."

Jane: "Great, how looks the canonical format?"

Jim: "Here, below the description you can see the definitions of all available data."

Jane: "Could you please send me a copy by mail?"

Jim; "Of course, I'll enter your mail-address here and press this button... there you are, a copy in your mailbox."

Jane: "And the invoice data?"

Jim: "Hmmm, look, it's not publicly available, you need the ask the permission of the owner. Shall I do that for you?"

Jane: "I first want to study the canonical format, Jim."

Jim: "You know we always translate the canonical format to your local required format, do you?"

Jane: "Yes, I do know that, but I want to know if all data we require is present."

Jim: "If not, you must inform our Competence Center Integration, they will add enrichments to your format if possible, or even extent the canonical format itself if appropriate."

Jane: "How many billing points will be charged for the invoice messages?"

Jim: "Well, it's not very cheap, look, 30 billing points per message. Look here, the events are available for consumption almost instantly when they physically occur. That means that the invoice process is fully automated. I can't help it, but you have to pay for that quality-of-service."

Jane: "Well, you charge almost nothing for a billing point, so I suppose it's not a big deal. Who is the owner over the invoice receipt events?

Jim: "The owner is the manager of the Finance Department, you can see it here. His name is Robert, the new guy with the big mustache."

Jane: "O, don't mention him, he is always much too kind to me, it scares me."

Jim: "Haha, okay, back to business, if you decide to consume these business events, contact the intake manager of our Competence Center Integration. As soon as he knows the data format you wish, he can have your system connected to our Enterprise Service Bus and configure your system to be subscribed to these events. It will take them about two days, including testing, I guess."